The Ninth Circle
by Mess
Summary: A vingette - Wesley, Lilah, and the occasional bedfellow that is Evil. Spoilers for Tomorrow, and PG-13 for language.


**The Ninth Circle**

  
Evil angel  
Tear down the monuments  
Evil angel  
Bury the coat of arms  
Rebuild for me these memories  
For to see the depth of my sorrow  
-- "Evil Angel", Rufus Wainwright  
  


Late evening finds Judas Iscariot and the Whore of Babylon taking a respite from the same old perversions and conducting an alarmingly civil conversation about the Antichrist. The ubiquitous _They_ have said that his dearest pseudo-Papa - who had fallen into the bleakest Abyss but never actually stopped loving God, to confusion of several distracted angels who followed him - had met his demise. 

Word travels. Word struggles. Word crawls out of its skin to sate its burning wanderlust and reach even this place, their inner sanctum, the ninth circle of Hell. The Whore is quite pleased with this development, while Judas draws his cynicism and apathy into thirty silver coins worth of resentment. He is also rather skeptical of claims of homicide. The Whore concurs but does not care. She is very fond of performance bonuses. 

"So do you think he's evil, then?"

"That depends on your definition of evil," he says, trying to find somewhere to look other than the ceiling. "There's beige Angel, leather Angel, Angel-with-the-flaming-sword... I could go on. Really, now - for someone whose entire existence basically revolves around the man I should think you'd be better informed." 

And the traitor wonders, briefly, if he should be charging her for his consulting services. But that would mean that he's her Whore too. Also? There is nothing else to talk about. They have made themselves for manipulations and half-lies, masks and mirrors, machinations and calculations and prophecies and contracts - Mission and Battles and Struggles and Wars. They are unused to words that mean absolutely nothing, and he is too tired right now to make her play or fight or leave. He finds, these days, that he is tired of almost everything. It is tedious locked down here, with nothing to do but listen to the footsteps above of all the saints and martyrs, and hope that someone might eventually open the door. There is poor heating down here, and he is becoming numb to them. Something in him has stirred, and it is sick of Judgement, divine or otherwise. 

She is cold too so she steals more of his blankets. He has been repeatedly informed that he is a cheap bastard and ought to get a job. That usually earns her a request to shut the fuck up. 

"Honest, good old-fashioned Evil. Black hats and black horses and horrible heartbreaking traumatic excuses nobody else gives a fuck about." 

"I'd wager not, " he says, and believes it.

"Damn," she rubs the fresh bite-marks on her neck and half-yawned. 

There is no further argument on the topic because really, Wesley ought to know. He _is_ the accredited expert in Evil. Magna cum laude. 

"What about you?"  


"What about me?"

"Ready to give Evil the old college try?" 

"I'm not evil."

"That depends on your definition of evil," she shrugs, and stops short of feeling him up beneath the comforter. There is blood under her fingernails. "I know several therapists who'd say that what you do to me is positively _wicked_. Fortunately for the both of us, I don't give a fuck. Well, except in the most literal sense." 

"I'm not evil," he says, dispassionately, and he should be more sure of that, because he is Wesley Wyndham-Pryce and Evil is what he knows. 

He has dissected evil and classified it - pulled out it's organs and mummified it and placed it in neatly-labeled sarcophagi for easy recollection. He is extremely well-read in the histories of Evil and other culturally significant bodies of Evil literature. He has sipped martinis with evil in ties and sunk axes into evil stinking of refuse. He is well-versed at least a dozen decidedly Evil languages. He has killed evil, saved evil, banished evil, summoned evil, condemned evil, committed evil, scorned evil, and tied evil to the bedpost so he could fuck it into the mattress. The ex-Watcher (ex-hunter, ex-son, ex-friend, ex-everything except ex Deus) has been steeped in evil from birth like a tea-bag, with any innate morality he once possessed diluted by his surroundings - a darker, brighter, more epic sort of world lurking just below the surface of society that alarmingly few people ever seemed to notice. 

All in the name of Good, of course. Or at least most of it was. But if Wesley has to be as honest with himself as his unfortunate sobriety is forcing him to be, he must admit that he knows Evil a hell of alot better. Perhaps he is evil's T.E. Lawrence - remaking himself in the image of his fascination. 

"Or..." she has closed her eyes. He hopes that he has woken her. She should not be too comfortable. This is _his_ domain. " I suppose, I could see, under certain qualifications, how one could consider me Evil. All of _them_ think that I'm evil. I find it odd that the only one who doesn't yet is someone like _you_." 

Maybe that is why he feels disturbingly at home with a whiskey-soaked agent of Hell than with the ones to whom he should confess and draw penance. Maybe that is why he prefers not to think about that or talk about that but just let this particular state of being slowly take him over. Like blood poisoning. It will be softer, if he can fall on her. He cannot be dark if she is darker. 

Her grin is sickening. He cannot see it, for it is marking lipstick into his pillow, but it's sickening nonetheless. Because he knows her. "See now? I know you could be reasonable. One you apply that brain of yours to something other than prophecies or fucking you're actually not as deluded as I'd originally thought."

"I didn't say I was your sort of evil, you stupid cow," he summons the energy to glare at her. 

"And what sort of evil would you be, then? I'll have you know that my sort of evil is a hell of a lot more productive than holing up here and brooding like a poor-man's Angel."

The Whore seems to be confused as to whether she ought to bother to stay awake, or fire the parting shots and get the hell out of Dodge while she can. She'd think she was taking the victory with her, as if it could make any possible difference to him. And shouldn't it? Shouldn't he want her gone? Is this yet another step on the road to perdition? But he is so tired, tired of all of it, tired of... 

Both of them desperately wish to be drunk, but all of the Beam is gone now. 

"But what would your sort of evil entail, Miss Morgan? Your evil is tiresome, to be honest. You people never accomplish anything. You're as obsolete as the Council of Watchers - sitting up in your ivory tower poring through books and trying to nudge things into happening." 

He can tell that this has slightly thrown her. She goes through periods of loathing him as much as she fixates on him. Their dislike of one another is naked - invitingly so, for one can't afford to be choosy about one's social connections in the heart of the underworld. He is self-absorbed and self-destructive and scandalously bitter. He uses her. She is shameless and cutting and she tries too hard. They will most certainly drive one another mad.

Wesley rather enjoys that thought. Madness would be much cheaper for the both of them than alcohol, and his funds are limited. 

"That's _their_ evil. Not _my_ evil. My evil is merciless, unforgiving, consuming... all the things they warn you about in Sunday School," when she answers, she sounds almost breathless. As if she's trusting him with something which is, naturally, ridiculous. "Honest, good old-fashioned evil. Black hats and black horses and horrible heartbreaking traumatic excuses you don't give a fuck about. The ability to crush your enemies - and that's pretty much everyone. Ambition and kink and everything you ever promised yourself that you could never have, because mommy and daddy said so. I was tired of pretending not to want what I did years before I met your enormous ego, believe it or not."  


Ah. 

....

"Think you can do that?"

The evening is quiet, and he is very cold. And she is very warm in here. And he will pretend that he is drunk again, so as not to think about it. Thinking seems to have been getting him in trouble, as of late. 

"I can do that."

"Think you can hate them?"

"I can do that too."

"Good."


End file.
